


Wasn't Gonna Leave You Twice

by pillowcrease



Series: to love is what you have shown me [1]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Kind-Of College AU, my second ghostbusters fic! i'm in deep, they're all nerds and i love them, uhhhh slow-build bc i live for that kind of thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-17 07:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8135479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillowcrease/pseuds/pillowcrease
Summary: “Okay, all I’m saying, Erin honey, just—Google it or something. ‘How do I, an adult woman, go on a nice, respectable date with another woman?’ Also, I’m pretty sure Holtzmann would be down with doing anything with you. Like, you could straight-up just take her to the park and feed ducks with her and she’d be very happy.”Or: Sort-Of-But-Not-Really College AU. You're... welcome?





	1. Chapter 1

“Hmpf. That was the last one!” Her father says, dropping a heavy carton box on the empty apartment floor.

            “Oh, thank you _so_ much for helping with this, dad. Would’ve taken me days without you.” Erin hugs her dad and pretends not to notice how teary-eyed both of them are.

Reluctantly, she says goodbye to him, closes the door to her new apartment and tries to imagine living here for at least the next three years of her life. She has just rounded up her bachelor at the University of Michigan – advanced physics, thank you very much – and decided to switch her shared dorm room for an apartment just for her. The next few years are going to be about particle physics only! Erin allows herself a small smile, thinking about that.

 

Most of the giant carton boxes (half of them labelled ‘books’) have just been unpacked when there’s a confident rap on the door. Erin, being too engrossed in trying to set up a new rail for the shower curtain, misses it.

            “Hello…?”

It isn’t until Erin hears a woman say “What’cha doing there?” That she realises someone’s entered her apartment. Erin quickly spins around, accidentally dropping the entire curtain rod (with the curtain on it) on the floor. There’s a woman leaning against the doorpost of her bathroom.

            “Excuse me! Who are you?” She tries to sound somewhat confident, but alas.

The wild-haired blonde grins and extends a (gloved?) hand. “Nice to meet you. Jillian Holtzmann. Call me Holtz.”

            “I’m Erin. Erin Gilbert. Do you live here, too?”

            “It appears you are my new next door neighbour,” Holtzmann responds.

Erin’s next door neighbour is a quite eccentric looking one: loose clothes tied together at the middle with a belt, she’s wearing oxfords with brightly coloured socks and are those yellow-tinted goggles stuck in her hair? She wills herself to stop staring and clears her throat. “Um, did you want anything to drink, or something? Actually no, sorry, I only have tap water. Just moved in, and all.”

Holtzmann grins again. “Tap water will do. By the way, I can fix that rod for you.”

 

After drinking Erin’s tap water (“My compliments to the chef!”), Holtzmann returns to her own apartment and emerges after a while with a blowtorch and a toolbox. Erin spends five minutes convincing her to _please_ not use the blowtorch. 

            “Not in my apartment, Holtzmann, no. I will not have scorch marks on my walls the first hours after moving in here. I want to wait at least a month. Alright?”

Holtzmann gives Erin puppy eyes which she has to turn away with a heavy heart. She’s so… _intense_ , Erin thinks. She feels strangely drawn to the other woman.

            “By the way, why _do_ you have a blowtorch of that size in your apartment?” Erin asks as she watches Holtzmann open up her toolbox and take out a handful of screws and other toolbox-stuff Erin doesn’t know the name of.

            “I uh, got it from the lab. Stole it, kind of. I will return it when I’m done with it.”

            “The lab? So, you’re what? A scientist? Lab assistant?”

Holtzmann turns her head to look at Erin. “Little bit of both. I uh, make stuff. Engineer kind of stuff. It gets kind of complicated… Last week I tried to build a reverse proton stream to uh, attract stuff with. Get it sucked into the contraption.” She purses her lips. “It really just turned out to be a very strong vacuum cleaner…” The engineer mumbles something about _vanished carpets_ and _her friend’s hamster_ and Erin tilts her head a bit confusedly.

“Oh! Please don’t tell the landlord about this, but I might have built a small nuclear reactor last week.” Holtz cracks a smile. “It’s very tiny. Real cute.”

Erin silently mouths _wow_. She babbles something, spins around, takes a deep breath. Then she turns around again, facing the back of the other scientist. “I’m a soon to be particle physicist.”

Holtz’ entire face lights up and Erin’s heart stutters a little at the sight.

“Isn’t that a nice surprise. If you want me to help you turn your theories into real life contraptions and other metal things you know where to find me. Uh, apartment 6F.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning, Erin is woken by the sound of some long-forgotten 80s-hit playing very loudly next door. Bleary-eyed, she conquers gravity and gets to Holtzmann’s apartment.

 

            _I know a place where we can dance, the whole night away_

Erin tries knocking, really. It’s just so loud.

 

            _Underneath the electric stars_

The music intensifies when she opens the door to the engineer’s apartment. She’s met by the sight of a dancing blonde standing in the middle of what Erin could only describe as _an_ _experiment gone wrong_ , a desk surrounded by metal parts, a scorch mark here and there. There’s a sparking circuit board just hanging on the wall. On the left side of the desk there’s a large cupboard that’s surely meant for storing glasses, or plates, but no—a big boom box has manifested itself right there.

Holtzmann is holding a blowtorch, a tinier one this time, while she sways her hips to the groovy tunes of DeBarge. Erin mouths goes dry for a second. Snapping back to focus, she resists making a pun about _barging in here_ and cocks her head. Erin waves slightly.

            “Holtz? Holtzmann?”

The blonde’s head snaps up just as the chorus sets in. Making eye contact with Erin, she makes a microphone out of a screwdriver.

            _To the beat of the rhythm of the night_

_Dance until the morning light_

_Forget about the worries on your mind_

_We can leave them all behind_

She dances towards Erin.

            “Come on! I like your pyjama look, by the way!”

            “How are you working already? Did you even sleep?”

Holtzmann doesn’t answer Erin. Instead, she extends a hand and drags Erin onto an imaginary dance floor. Holtzmann takes to singing in Erin’s face, bouncing playfully around and dragging Erin along with her.

            “Ugh, you’re getting spit in my eye.”

It’s over far too quickly for Erin’s liking. Holtzmann returns to what she might refer to as a workspace. She picks up two trivial-seeming pieces of metal and starts soldering them together.

            “Do you always do this? It’s 7 AM.”

            “Always admit to your muses, Gilbert. You never know what might happen.”  


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Backstory + you can smell the beginnings of a crush. *Crowd 'ooh's and 'aah's*

Nothing really happens the next few weeks.

“Now that’s not true,” Holtz had said, when Erin walked into her lab for the fourth time that day, telling herself that she needed a distraction and Holtz seemed like a friend who was, in fact, very distracting. “A lot of stuff happens when _I’m_ involved.” The engineer pointed at something that looked like a metal statue of… a ghost? Erin frowned. She wondered if Holtz knew about Erin’s ghost-filled past. When she asked _why_ , the other had just shrugged. Tinkering away on something, Holtz had said, “I shall name him… Rowan.”

When Holtz is busy (which was 80% of her time spent awake, really), there really is no use in trying to get her involved in conversation. This is something Erin notices quickly about her: while eccentric, the engineer isn’t a big talker, and instead she focusses on making and/or wearing things to get her point across. In Erin’s first week, Holtz had just walked into Erin’s new apartment wearing a T-shirt saying “Say Hey If You’re Gay”. Erin, flustered, didn’t say anything, but did finger guns as a way of greeting her.

Walking into each others apartments after just a knock was a thing they got around to doing a lot. It was mostly Erin doing the walking, so she could sit down near Holtz’ ‘lab space’ and practice her equations and other particle physics-related stuff. Turns out the other scientist is really good at physics as well. (Not that Erin had doubted that for one moment, but it’s just that Holtz generally comes across more as a mad/genius inventor.) When Holtz noticed that the other had not written anything for over ten minutes, instead exhaling loudly every now and then, she’d get up and take a look at the particular problem. Oftentimes, it would make Erin fluster a little bit, with the blonde leaning over her work, sitting very closely, little strands of her hair falling in her face. She’d smell like oil, sweat and cotton candy and it was so distinctly _Holtz_ that it made Erin feel warm all over.

_I like her,_ she thinks. Cheeks flushed, a small smile playing on her lips. _I have a friend._

 

But then college starts off the new school year, and it all changes very quickly.

  1. There is an introduction week for all students in every year. It mostly consists of getting really drunk while wearing a nametag.
  2. What the _hell_ is Abby doing here?



 

* * *

 

 

Erin grew up in rural Michigan. Up until age nine, she had a comfortable childhood, albeit a bit nerdy (her favorite subject was science and she’d managed to fail recess once). They lived in a suburb where a lot of old people lived as well. Young Erin liked the old people because they were wise and possessed a lot of antique stuff: one time, her neighbor Hank had given her an old telescope.

            “Now, you know how this works,” he’d said, with the kind of slow but captivating way of talking that only old people possess. “But this is a special one. This used to belong to the marines. Now this was… one hundred years ago.” (Erin had gasped, unable to comprehend such a long time.) “It was recovered from one of their ships that had gone missing… They found it again, sixty years later.”

So, Erin, aged nine, had her magic old telescope and decided to put it to good use immediately. She set it up in her bedroom and used it to peek over the hedge and into her neighbour’s garden, where an old grumpy lady lived. Then, she _gasped_ , realising with a shock that the grumpy old lady was staring right back at her. Quickly, she got off her stool and hid under her bed, which was the only reasonable answer if you were nine years old and having a slight panic attack. The lady never seemed to like her, and Erin, young and shy, could never figure out why.

Things got worse from then on. The old lady died a month later, and Erin watched the black hearse carry her body away. Wide-eyed, she swore she could feel and _see_ a cold breeze pass through her body at that exact moment. She began to shiver, and it never really stopped.

That’s when the night terrors started. Exhaustedly, she’d wake up every single day of grade five, not even bothering to tell her parents that the ghost of the cranky old lady stood at her bed yet again that night. People in school started to pick up on Erin’s strange behaviour as well. As children do, they pointed at her. Whispered about her. On the way home from school one day, a boy sat next to her and asked her questions, like, “What does she look like?”, and, “Why did she choose you?” And Erin, grateful for the genuine interest shown towards her, told him the entire story. Of course, right when she thought she’d made a friend, he turned around and yelled to all his friends about how Ghost Girl was ‘ _crazy’_.

 

        

They’re a month in, and Erin is sitting in her science class trying to stay awake, dark circles under her eyes, when a new girl is introduced to the class.

            “This is Abby Yates. Please be nice to her, she’s just moved here from Chicago and she’ll be spending the rest of her time in primary school with you guys.”

The new girl seems unfazed by the curious looks of 25 primary school students in front of her. She notices no one’s sitting next to Erin and takes the seat. Erin glances at her: Abby is not very tall and not very skinny but she’s wearing glasses and she _looks_ confident. A spark of jealousy pangs in her chest. Erin doesn’t really think anything about it anyway. Abby will find better, more popular friends.

But Abby sticks with Erin. She asks her about the Ghost Girl nickname, and actually, _genuinely_ gets excited when she’s told that Erin can see ghosts.

            “So let’s find more!” She says, like it’s nothing.

They take every book about the paranormal from the local library the same day, and Erin can’t quite believe Abby wants to hang out with her, but she just goes with it. No one would want to spend more than five minutes with her if they were going to make fun of her, right?

A week later, Abby stays over at Erin’s house because she wants to see that _freaking_ ghost. Of course, it vanishes once Erin tries to wake Abby up.

            “It’s okay,” Abby tries to tell a disgruntled, sniffling Erin. “We’ll find more one day. And we’re going to catch them! Bust them! People will call us when they’re in trouble!”

 

They stick together. All through primary school, middle school and high school. Erin’s personal ghost disappears after a rough year of haunting, but Abby, strangely, doesn’t. They don’t mention Erin’s ghost for an impressive amount of time. They both have to focus on school, is what Erin tells herself. So she stares ahead and blocks all impulses that are not going to improve her academic career.

Erin still has her therapy session once a week. Her parents sent her to dr. Wilson two weeks after her personal ghost appeared. After hearing every single variation of “ghosts aren’t real and they’re just a figment of your imagination,” and “you’re feeling abandoned and are looking for attention,” and “it’s common for a girl your age to say this,” Erin feels mentally drained. She feels numb to the whole ghost situation. When her ghost doesn’t show up anymore one day, she actually convinces herself she made it up all along. She doesn’t tell Abby that, the same Abby who still has two bookshelves full of papers on paranormal entities.

They stick together for a very long time. That is, until the end of high school approaches and Abby announces she wants to study the paranormal.

Ghosts, that is.

Erin declares Abby is delusional. After a two-week long fight, graduation is there and Erin officially says goodbye to Abby, trying not to think about the look of betrayal in Abby’s eyes.

 

            “You said we’d always be friends.”

 

* * *

 

 

And right now, at this very moment, Abby _Freaking_ Yates is sitting in Jillian Holtzmann’s apartment, like it’s nothing.

Like it isn’t weird at all that the other ‘ghost’ from Erin’s past is in the apartment of the only girl who seems to like her, at this very moment, with the curtains drawn and some vague party music playing. They’re sitting on the ground with an Ouija board, candles placed around them, yelling and laughing and, oh – they’re drunk. They’re _drunk_.

Erin takes a step back, ready to return to her own apartment when Holtz notices her hovering in the doorway. She grins messily in the way that drunk people do and says, “Eeeerinn!” Of course, Abby turns her head, too. Erin just stares at her, unable to manage a word past her lips.

            “I, uh…”

            “Erin?” Abby squints at her.

Holtzmann looks at Abby, then at Erin. She leans back, mouth wide open. “Whaatt? You guys know each other?” She says, motioning between them.

Erin awkwardly clears her throat. “We went to school together.”

            “Yeah, well. Until the end of senior year.” Abby isn’t quite as drunk as Erin would like her to be. That would make the whole situation a lot easier.

Holtz still looks shocked and shakes her head, making an attempt at standing up. “Well! I guess I will leave you guys—” she almost falls over, “—alone.” She hiccups and does her two-fingered salute, then walks to the kitchen.

Erin tentatively sits down near Abby. She notices Abby still wears her hair up in a messy bun and still wears her glasses. Both haven’t consciously changed a single aspect about their looks since senior year, Erin thinks. She fidgets with her fringe nervously.

Abby speaks up first. “So, how do you know Holtzmann?”

            “I’m her next-door neighbour.”

            “Wow,” Abby says. “Fate, huh.”

            “I guess so,” Erin mutters, picking at a loose thread on her jeans.

They sit in silence for a while longer.

            “You know,” Erin starts off. “I’m not really mad at you anymore.”

Abby looks up at her. “Pretty sure you said something else the last time we spoke. Something about chasing literal ghosts and being delusional.”

Erin mumbles something about saying stupid things in the heat of the moment and how she hopes Abby doesn’t fully hate her now. Her chest feels heavy with a new kind of sadness. Melancholy, she thinks. Feeling sad and pensive. Things could’ve worked out so differently, and Erin was the one who chose academia over her best friend.

Abby knows. Like always. Abby tells her she doesn’t _hate_ her, and Erin waits for the ‘but,’ and it doesn’t come.

            “I guess things are going to be awkward between us now, huh.”

            “Well, we can work on that.” They give each other a tentative smile.

It’s just then that they hear rumbling from the kitchen, followed by the muffled _thud_ of a body falling to the floor and Holtzmann yelling “Ah!”

Right. Moment ruined, Erin thinks. She stands up and vaguely gestures towards the kitchen, saying, “I’m just gonna…” and Abby nods silently.

 

Later that night, after Abby finally returns to her respective apartment at 2 am, after another fruitless attempt at contacting the dead through an Ouija board – it had spelled I M G A Y three times and Holtz wouldn’t admit her faults until Erin pinned her down and tickled her – Erin’s sitting with Holtz on the couch. The engineer is still slightly drunk and presses her shoulder into Erin’s.

            “Is it me or did I get serious ex-girlfriend vibes from you and Abby?”

Erin stutters. “I-mean, that was you probably, I’ve never had a serious girlfriend,” she says.

Holtzmann interrupts her. “So you’ve had _a_ girlfriend?”

            “What? We’re not talking about this right now, Holtz.”

            “I have had a girlfriend. Girlfriends.” Holtz looks pensive. “They never really stay for a long time,” she says, and Erin is overcome with a wave of affection for her friend. She looks at the blonde. Thinks about what she wants to say without it sounding creepy or weird.

            “I’m planning to stay for a long time.”

Holtz looks up at her and smiles one of her warmest (sloppiest) smiles Erin’s ever seen and her heart turns into a puddle, her lungs fill with flowers and she blushes. Holtzmann shuffles, cuddles up to Erin’s shoulder and yawns. Blonde hair tickles Erin’s nose and she barely registers it. She breathes in Holtzmann’s scent – motor oil, rose wine and something sweet, like cotton candy.

She can’t fall asleep with her on the couch, though. Slowly, she lays Holtzmann down on the couch and covers her with a blanket. She presses the lightest of kisses to the blonde’s head and returns to her own apartment.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Yes, I know, the facts don't add up with canon, that's why I write.) 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always highly appreciated! :D


	3. Chapter 3

Erin wakes up with Holtzmann softly blowing in her ear. Eyes shut together, she waves her hand around until she finds Holtz’ face.

            “Holtzmann.” Erin opens one eye and sees Holtz bending over Erin’s bed, her head dangerously close. She doesn’t remove her hand from Holtzmann’s mouth and nose.

            “Yes,” the engineer tries to say.  

            “What are you doing in my bedroom?”

Holtzmann carefully takes Erin’s hand off her face, stands up straight and takes a step back. “I’m sorry…” She pulls a face, then points behind her, where Abby is standing in the doorway.

Erin, not very used to people looking at her when she’s just woken up and looks like an absolute mess, yells in surprise and hides under her blanket. Holtzmann pokes her.

            “Hey, genius. It’s 10PM. You promised to go to the Sullivan’s Mansion with us today.”

Abby, still standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, nods. “The presumably haunted one? Remember?

Of course. Last night, in their tipsy state, Erin reminisced with Abby about their childhood and talked about their favorite ghost stories. Abby informed them that the Sullivan’s Mansion, the one where a family of three mysteriously disappeared one day, is very nearby.

Erin groans. “Just give me 10 minutes. And ibuprofen.”

 

* * *

 

 

The Sullivan’s Mansion is a rather large house just out of New York City, a Victorian style-building with creaking wooden floors and dusty windows. The mansion is open for visitors, but no one ever bothered to set up a ticket office, so the three of them just plan to walk in.

“Excuse me!” A woman on the other side of the street waves at them, then crosses over. “Do you know anything about this building?”

Abby shrugs a little bit. “Just that it’s possibly haunted…”

The woman claps in her hands, delighted, and Erin, slightly alarmed, takes a step back.

            “Great! I’ll show you guys around. I’m Patty.”

Patty knows a lot about the Mansion. She points at the chairs at the dining table, the 19th century clothes hanging in the closet (Abby had a coughing fit when they opened it, which told them the family must have had cats back them), the carpets on the second floor. She tells them the family mysteriously disappeared, yes, but the married couple that moved in here a year later, disappeared after two weeks. They look around in awe, slightly spooked. Erin silently wishes she’d brought the prototype of her Anti-Ghost Gun (patent pending) with her. Holtzmann shrugs and says, “maybe they just didn’t like the acoustics in this house,” followed by her humming the X-Files theme. Erin slaps her softly on her shoulder.

Patty tells them, “I know _this_ house is spooky, but wait until you see this other hotel I have for ya. Rhodes… something. It’s like a mile from here. It used to be a prison for foreigners who did real messed up stuff. They used to electrocute them but back then it cost so much time and energy that they said, ‘nah man, just hang them’, and so they did. They still have issues with electricity over there and a lot of people who just walk past the building say they get goose bumps from the static.” She looks around excitedly. They agree with her, though Erin is still a bit scared of the large woman who looks so thrilled to visit more dead souls.

They invite Patty to eat dinner with them at Holtzmann’s apartment. Abby, Holtz and Erin love her because she tells great stories. Most of them are about the history of New York, but she also has a really weird neighbor who keeps confusing her.

            “Man, I don’t even know if he knows how to use the phone! Also, one day his dog just walked into my apartment, settles itself on my couch and thirty minutes later he comes yelling in here, saying “my cat!” And I’m like, dude, that ain’t a cat. He just frowned and told me the name of his dog was ‘Mike Hat.’” Patty shakes her head and they laugh, eating more of the junk food Holtzmann stashes in her apartment until eventually it’s getting late and Abby tells Patty they should probably head home. Erin stands up, too, after saying good bye to the other two. She stretches her back and catches Holtzmann’s eye, who quickly looks away.

            “What?” Erin asks.

Holtzmann makes a vague gesture with her hand. “Nothing.” She looks at her watch, then at Erin. “There’s a rerun of a The X-Files episode on TV right now. Wanna watch?”

Erin wants to. She goes to sit on the other side of the couch, making Holtzmann scoff. The engineer moves very closely beside her, places a pillow in Erin’s lap and lays her head right there.

            “I promise I won’t fall asleep this time.” And she doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

Erin’s had boyfriends. Granted, not in high school, but in her first year of college she decided she should give dating a try and said ‘yes’ to the first guy who asked her out. Paul. Paul was a chemistry student who was the stereotypical, “what? You’ve never seen Pulp Fiction?” kind of first date person. Erin wasn’t going to tell him she has both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files complete box sets, so she’d just shrugged. They had ended up making out (grossly, might she add) on his couch with Uma Thurman watching them, on mute, in the background. Paul had fondled her boobs rather unromantically and Erin told him they should take it slow. Paul didn’t like that and had said that he’d rather immediately break up with her than wait two months to have sex with her.

It took Erin half a year to carefully enter the dating ring again, which is when she met Phil. Phil was in Erin’s basic physics class, taught by dr. Higgins. Phil had started a conversation with Erin about particle physics and they seemed to really click. He asked her out once, twice, then three times before he asked her to be his girlfriend. And how could Erin say no, really? They shared the same interests, their class with dr. Higgins was great and they supported each other intellectually. It was just that Erin didn’t really like to kiss him. Or do other couple-y things with him. But she powered through that, telling herself that the real attraction would come and the nervousness she got when he tried to do more than kiss her was her body telling her she was, in fact, attracted to him. It wasn’t until one day Phil caught her staring just a little too long at dr. Higgins that he decided to confront her about her behavior. _Are you in love with me?_ He asked. Erin told him they’d only been dating for two months; how would she know? Which resulted in him accusing Erin of staring too lovingly at her physics professor, who was a woman. Erin had just stood there, baffled, while he’d said, _think about it._ And: _I need we need to take a break_.

She’d taken her break up with Phil very hard. Not because she was in love with him, but because of the things he’d said about her and dr. Higgins. Could she be attracted to people who weren’t… men? Erin’s recent actions concerning Holtzmann, which was cuddling together, being a little bit too friendly with her at times, made her reconsider her very own sexuality. Surely all girls got crushes on their professors, right? It doesn’t matter the gender, she thought.

So the brown-haired soon-to-be particle physicist sits there, under her desk (she doesn't know why; it had seemed the safest option for what she's about to do), and opens Google on her phone.

 _I think I like women_ , she types in, stares at it, then deletes the text. Then Erin tries, _women who like other women_ , and she comes across a site which tells her everything she needs to know, which is this: sexuality is confusing and she doesn’t want any part in it. _So what_ if she gets crushes on her female professors and wants to do more than cuddle Holtzmann? Erin exhales heavily. Oh god. She wants to do more. _More._ With Holtzmann. The butterflies in her stomach are acting up again and Erin closes her eyes. _“_ Shit.” She mutters.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s right then that Holtzmann barges into the apartment.

     “ERIN! I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU!” She yells, not seeing Erin anywhere.

A head peeps up from under a desk surrounded by stacks of very important looking books and papers.

     “Holtz! Sorry I was just—Looking for something—” Erin hastily shoves her phone under a stack of paper. “Uh, are you okay?” She asks, noting the streaks of dirt on Holtz’ face.

     “I’m alright, you glorious weirdo, and we _will_ discuss whatever you were doing before I came in here.” Holtz marches over to where Erin’s sitting on the floor, her hands behind her back.

     “I have something for you,” she says, then holds out what she hid behind her back. They’re vegetables. Beets, mostly, but also carrots and… flowers?

     “What’s going on?” Erin asks, blushing slightly. “This is a very strange looking bouquet.”  

     “I, uh… So you know I have a garden,” Holtz begins with a grin.

     “I did not know that.”

     “And you know I don’t even like vegetables, but I planted these and grew these anyway, and I might have used GM to make them even better, so, yeah,” Holtz concludes.

Erin looks at her and tilts her head. “You’re giving me these vegetables because you don’t really eat vegetables, but you grew them.”

     “Yes!” Holtz is still grinning.

     “What about the flowers?” Erin asks.

     “Oh! Yes, the flowers.” Is she blushing? “I also planted flower seeds. Turns out you don’t need to use five packets of wildflower seeds. Half a packet would probably have done. My apartment… is full of flowers. I’m drowning in them, so I’m giving you some.” Holtz looks at Erin, her face serious and her eyes wide.

     “That’s… wow. That’s actually really nice, Holtz, thanks,” Erin says, taking the vegetables and flowers. “You know, I want to ask _why_ and _how_ but at this point I’m not even going to.”

Holtz just stands around awkwardly as Erin washes her ‘gifts’.

     “For a second there, I, um, thought you were going to ask me something, different, maybe—you know? But that was just me being me, probably,” Erin babbles, somehow unable to stop the words from falling off her tongue. Her heart is picking up speed.

     “What did you think I was going to ask you?” Holtz grins, moving to stand beside Erin, leaning on the kitchen counter, fully knowing how to make Erin blush. “Enlighten me.”

Erin fiddles with the flowers she’s cutting, her face heated. “Well I thought it was like, you were going to ask me to go out sometime, or something. Like, a date.”

Holtz just grins, loving watching Erin stumble over her words. “Would you like it if I did that?”

     “Asking me on a date? Well you know I’m, not, like—” Erin begins.

     “Interested?”

     “No! I mean, yes!” Erin makes a face. She drops the flowers altogether. “I mean I’m not opposed. To the idea. Of going out with you. If that’s what you wanted to know.” She turns to the genius engineer with a slightly terrified expression on her face.

Holtz gazes at her intensely. “Erin. Ez. I need you to know I’m not kidding.”

     “Cool. Yes,” Erin says, awkwardly making finger guns in an attempt to seem collected. “I’m also not kidding.”

     “So, we’re doing this?” Holtz asks.

Erin nods, slightly red and with a small smile on her face. “Uh-huh.”

Holtz’ entire face lights up as she smiles and says, “it’s a date!” Before walking out of Erin’s apartment, fist pumping the air in the dorkiest way.

Erin heavily exhales and sits down. Boy, she’s in for a ride.


	4. Chapter 4

Patty, lovable as she is, laughs and hangs up when Erin nervously calls her to ask for advice on dates. Abby laughs as well.

            “It isn’t funny, Abby!” Erin says.

Abby just snorts. “Holtzmann asked you on a date? Explicitly? Or did she do it in the Holtzmann Way?”

            “I don’t know—wait, what do you mean the ‘Holtzmann Way’? Has she tried that on you?”

            “Okay, all I’m saying, Erin honey, just—Google it or something. ‘ _How do I, an adult woman, go on a nice, respectable date with another woman_?’ Also, I’m pretty sure Holtzmann would be down with doing anything with you. Like, you could straight-up just take her to the park and feed ducks with her and she’d be very happy.”

This time it’s Erin who hangs up.

 

~

 

Erin doesn’t know how to prepare for her date. She’s dated before, but this time it’s different. It’s _Holtz_ , who isn’t only a woman, she’s also already very important to Erin. Oh god, Holtz is basically her best friend. What if she messes up? Their entire friendship would be ruined, wouldn’t it?

_Calm down, Erin._ _This is no time for a panic attack._

She looks at herself in the mirror. A college student who wears academic suits with tiny bowties and who really loves ghost stories and physics. She never really stuck to the societal norm, did she? Erin takes a deep breath, thinks to herself, _I can do this_ , and picks respectable ‘date clothes’—a flared knee-length skirt and what she thinks is a casual blouse. Holtzmann said she’d pick Erin up at 7pm at Erin’s apartment, so Erin sits nervously at her own dining table, fiddling with her hair, trying to think of things to say or do.

 

 

Holtz knocks on Erin’s apartment door at precisely 7pm. Holtz, true to form, has her hair in its intricate up-do but now it looks a bit neater and she looks a little less sweaty. She smells nice, Erin notices. Also, she's is holding another bouquet. No vegetables in it this time.

            “Hi.” Holtz hands over the roses and plants a quick kiss on Erin’s cheek, almost nervously. It makes Erin blush.

            “Do you have a plan?” Erin asks, stammering a little.

Holtzmann shrugs. “Sometimes. On special occasions.” She winks. The fact that Holtzmann seems nervous makes Erin feel just a little bit better.

Erin feels warm inside. She smiles. “I’ll take the bouquet… this is lovely, did you grow these, too?”

            “Nah, roses take too long to actually grow, so I bought these downstairs at the little dusty shop owned by the old lady who only wears teal-colored two-piece’s,” Holtzmann says, talking just a little bit too fast. Holtz pauses for a little, probably noticing the two of them are standing way closer than they should stand, and that Erin is staring at her lips. Holtz licks her lips and Erin closes her eyes briefly, before making a mental note that they should go on a date _first_. She goes inside her apartment for a quick moment to put Holtz’ bouquet in a vase.

Holtzmann clears her throat. “We should… be going. I have a reservation at this new restaurant that has a really nice ‘vibe’… know a lot of lesbians who come there, heh.”

            “You’re serious?”

            “Yeeess! And the ‘vibe’ I’m referring to is a gay one. A gay vibe.”

            “I could’ve guessed that.”

 

~

 

 “So, Erin.” Holtz props her hand under her head and regards Erin whilst taking a sip of her drink. “When did you realize you like girls?”

Erin, caught off guard, widens her eyes a little, before stammering out, “I mean—the feelings, being attracted to other women, aren’t new but—I think I’ve had crushes on women, even, my professor… But I think it was you. Who made me realize.”

            “I made you realize you like girls.” Holtz states, grinning.

Erin feels like her head is resembling a perfectly ripe tomato. “Yes,” she gives in.

            “I love that.” Holtz is biting her lip, and Erin feels a familiar feeling of warmth spreading in her stomach.  

 

They talk about everything and nothing in Holtz’ chosen ‘Lesbian Restaurant’, which was a really nice restaurant, actually. She could handle surrounding herself only with lesbian couples if that meant she gets to have great nights like these with the best person she knows. Holtzmann’s full of thoughtful thoughts and funny anecdotes that make Erin hiccup with laughter. Erin, in her turn, loves making Holtzmann laugh by telling her the worst date stories she has, along talking passionately about physics, which is a shared interest of them.

They just _click_ , Erin thinks. It’s nothing like she’s had or felt before and she feels very lucky, bordering on the line of love. Slow down. _Slow down_.

 

They’ve both finished eating and drinking and there’s a lull in the conversation. Holtz looks up at Erin, who’s already looking at her in silent amazement. Holtz clears her throat, then tentatively places a soft hand on Erin’s hand.

            “Not to be cheesy but, do you want to get outta here? Go back to my place?”

            “I heard it’s very close to where I live.” Erin smiles.

            “Ha-ha, nerd.” Holtzmann asks for someone to get their bill, they pay, and then they’re outside the restaurant. It’s cold, and Erin hunches her shoulders with her hands in the pockets of her coat. She stares at the concrete below her feet.

 

A tap on her shoulder.

“Hey,” Holtz says. “Take this.” She’s standing face-to-face with Erin. Holtz takes a step forward and moves into Erin’s space, wrapping a scarf around Erin’s neck. The scarf is warm and smells like the engineer. She looks at Holtz, who’s looking at her curiously, blushing slightly. Erin smiles. “Thanks.”

Holtzmann doesn’t move backwards. Instead, she places her hands on either side of Erin’s face and kisses her. It’s a peck, first. Holtzmann moves backward slightly.

Erin’s unable to open her eyes at first. Then, she seems to realize something and mutters, “Don’t move away,” and leans back in. Erin suppresses a whimper.

God, she wanted this. So badly.

Her hands are on the blonde’s waist, Holtz seeming like the expert here, as if they’re dancing and she’s leading. They stand there for a little while, outside the restaurant.

Erin reluctantly pulls back for air and rests their foreheads together. “I’m getting kinda cold, here, Holtz. Don’t leave me hanging with the promise of a warm and cozy apartment.”

Holtz stares at her dazedly for a moment. _She looks even more beautiful like this,_ Erin thinks. Her lips are tingly and she feels rather euphoric. She kind of wishes the engineer would’ve gone through with her machine that could manipulate time, so this brief moment could last forever.

Holtzmann blinks, then says, “Yeah, uh-huh, let’s go.” Even after initiating their first kiss, the engineer seems shy, Erin notices. She links their arms together, pressing into Holtz side. Erin kisses Holtz’ cheek.

“So, let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Film director voice* aaannnd that's a wrap! Actually, no it's not, i think i'm going to add an epilogue, but for now the storyline is sort of finished :~)  
> i'm really sorry this was so delayed!!! i have a lot of things going on at home and i've been having a Bad Time but writing this made me feel warm, hehe. i just. really love my gays thank you
> 
> let me know what u thiiiiiiiink! love ya <3

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise for any dumb grammar errors and other mistakes I might've made. I'm not an English native speaker!
> 
> Let me know what you think!!! I live off kudos and comments are always super appreciated, thanks guys :D


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